Linking Culture and the Environment

A. Trau and R. Bushell 265
Bank, and have been since the early 1990s. While this can and does yield
benefits to indigenous communities at the local level, arguably, the bigger
picture is still the problem (Spenceley and Seif 2003; Trau, 2006). For as long
as the consumption of tourism is in the ‘domain of the wealthy’, so too is
much of its production (Hall, 2007a, p. 16), which leads Hall and Brown
(2006, p. 13) to ask, ‘does PPT simply offer another route by which economic
imperialism, through tourism, may extend its tentacles, or is it an appropriately
liberating and remunerative option?’ Hall and Tucker (2004, pp. 4–5)
raise similar issues viewed through postcolonialism, suggesting that tourism
is a ‘new colonial plantation economy’ and a form of ‘leisure imperialism’.
The rationale for PPT is much more profound than the purely economic
aspects so often cited.
One of the key motivations for indigenous peoples is the opportunity
to link the economic incentive to protection and transfer of traditional cultural
custom and knowledge – that tourism can help to keep ‘culture alive’.
However, on the other side of this positive potential is the potential for
cultural significance to be commodified and appropriated. Internationally
indigenous peoples are looking towards much greater control and management
of tourism that involves indigenous cultural knowledge, performance
and material culture. Indigenous groups are insisting on the
adherence to codes of ethics for users of indigenous cultures as components
of tourism product or promotion. In Australia, indigenous tourism
has been identified as a vital and growing area of the Australian tourism
industry.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) document
Our Culture –Our Future (Janke, 1998) and the Mataatua Declaration on
the Cultural, Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1993) provide
strong guidelines for the development of an indigenous tourism code of
ethics. The Mataatua Declaration states the following: ‘Indigenous people
are the guardians of their customary knowledge and have the right to protect
and control dissemination of that knowledge. They also have the right
to create new know ledge based on cultural traditions’. This is in accord with
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which affirms that cultural heritage
constitutes an irreplaceable tangible and intangible legacy of all peoples.
There are inherent duties and responsibilities for individuals and communities
as well as institutions and states to protect this right for future generations
(James et al., 2001).
The ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Charter (1999) affirms this
and clearly states that each country is responsible for ensuring the protection
of the cultural heritage rights of all its people:
At a time of increasing globalisation, the protection, conservation, interpretation
and presentation of the heritage and cultural diversity of any particular place
or region is an important challenge for people everywhere. However,
management of that heritage, within a framework of internationally recognised
and appropriately applied standards, is usually the responsibility of the
particular community or custodian group.
(ICOMOS, 1999)